SARD Initiative

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The SARD Initiative - How to Become Involved

How to get involved form

Thank you for your interest in the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Initiative. Through this catalytic Initiative, you can assist rural communities and disadvantaged groups to effect the transition to more sustainable agriculture and rural development, helping to build their capacity, improve their access to critical resources, and foster innovations. The SARD Initiative seeks to:

We welcome your participation in the Initiative. By joining in this Initiative, you will be uniting with a community of dedicated stakeholders to enhance the well-being of rural populations and accelerate progress in SARD beyond WSSD. Your involvement in this Initiative means that you will play an active role in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a catalytic framework for action from the local level to the international level. The following are some of the ways that you can become involved and support the Initiative's capacity building facility, resource centre and funds for innovation, but please feel free to propose your own ideas:

• Provide successful case studies or experiences of how SARD was/is being accomplished, including successful technologies, sustainable agricultural practices, and effective rural development approaches and methods;
• Share relevant research findings and decision support tools;
• Link an existing local, national or international project or initiative to the SARD Initiative for the sharing of knowledge, experiences and resources;
• Host/provide support for participation in conferences, workshops, farmer field schools and other local, national, or international fora for learning, consultation, consensus building and joint action related to SARD;
• Fund, host, or provide expertise for South-South and North-South inter-community and inter-stakeholder learning exchanges, site visits, and targeted training activities on a demand basis;
• Offer services, expertise, knowledge, technologies and other resources on SARD to support community, regional and national initiatives;
• Identify relevant local, national, regional and international projects, networks and resources that could be tapped by interested communities and disadvantaged groups;
• Provide financial resources /seed money to support rural communities and disadvantaged groups interested in making innovations, pilot testing, experimenting and scaling-up of demonstrated technologies, good practices, participatory approaches and strategic alliances and to fund a management team to co-ordinate these efforts.